Posts Tagged ‘entomology’
Science & Technology - Feb 10, 2010 10:19 - 0 Comments
Caterpillars ‘lost’ in space without gravity
U. KANSAS (US)—A recent trip into low-Earth orbit has shown just how much monarch butterflies depend on gravity. (more…)
Science & Technology - Feb 2, 2010 12:08 - 0 Comments
Virus entices insects to spread infection
PENN STATE—A common plant virus lures aphids to infected plants by making the plants more attractive. When the insects taste the plant, they quickly leave for tastier, healthier ones, rapidly transmitting the disease. (more…)
Earth & Environment - Jan 15, 2010 17:53 - 0 Comments
Pest with an appetite for biofuel crops
U. ILLINOIS—The western corn rootworm beetle, a pest that feasts on corn roots and corn silk and costs growers more than $1 billion annually in the U.S., also can survive on the perennial grass Miscanthus x giganteus, a potential biofuels crop that would likely be grown alongside corn, researchers report. (more…)
Science & Technology - Nov 5, 2009 16:20 - 7 Comments
Don’t let the (rebounding) bedbugs bite
RUTGERS (US)—Changlu Wang and his team are studying the habits of blood-sucking bedbugs in an effort to identify novel ways to capture and kill them. Ignored by researchers for decades, bedbugs are proliferating in the wake of a ban on the pesticide DDT. (more…)
Earth & Environment - Nov 3, 2009 0:36 - 2 Comments
Good vs. bad in battle of the bugs
PENN STATE (US)—The control of spider mites, which damage tree leaves, reduce fruit quality and cost growers millions of dollars in the use of pesticide and oil spraying, is being biologically controlled in Pennsylvania apple orchards with two tiny insects known to be natural predators. (more…)
Earth & Environment - Nov 2, 2009 11:35 - 0 Comments
Beetles point to habitat’s role in biodiversity
VANDERBILT (US)—Tiny leaf beetles that flit among the maple and willow trees in a Vermont town have provided some of the clearest evidence yet that environmental factors play a major role in the formation of new species. (more…)
Health & Medicine - Oct 28, 2009 18:17 - 5 Comments
Human, bird scent drives mosquitoes wild
UC DAVIS (US)—Scientists have identified the dominant odor produced by humans and birds that attracts blood-feeding Culex mosquitoes, known to transmit West Nile virus and other serious diseases. (more…)
Earth & Environment - Aug 18, 2009 4:00 - 0 Comments
Clues to bee collapse raise questions
“While the study’s results don’t indicate a specific cause of CCD, the results do help scientists narrow the direction of future CCD research by showing that some possible causes are less likely,” says Jeff Pettis, an entomologist with the ARS Bee Research Laboratory. (Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons/http://commons.wikimedia.org)
Earth & Environment - Aug 7, 2009 4:00 - 0 Comments
Malady makes OJ taste like jet fuel
Researchers are using an advanced method for genome sequence analysis—known as metagenomics—to identify the pathogen responsible for citrus greening, a disease that could devastate the citrus industry.
Health & Medicine - May 13, 2009 10:16 - 1 Comment
Taming mosquitoes with smell-stopping fungus
PENN STATE (US)—In an effort to stop the spread of malaria, a team of entomologists at Penn State is looking for an insect disease that will infect mosquitoes and impair their sense of smell—in effect, taking away their appetite to feed on humans. (more…)
